


macaron mayhem

by lonely_journalkeeper



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Florist AU, Fluff, M/M, kravitz sells flowers, taako owns a restaraunt, taako tries to bake his way out of his problems what else is new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 12:22:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15729318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonely_journalkeeper/pseuds/lonely_journalkeeper
Summary: There's a hot new florist across the street but he's a walking fashion disaster. Like he does with all his problems, Taako tries to bake his way out of it.





	macaron mayhem

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this tumblr post ](https://sosuperawesome.com/post/176468983849/macarons-by-ayseyamanbutikpasta-on-instagraml) thanks for making me finish my first TAZ fic.

“You realize there are other ways of seducing men besides baking elaborate desserts, right Taako?”  
  
“Never heard of her,” said Taako dismissively. He had three different mixing bowls going at once, magicking his way around the kitchen at a pace that might have alarmed anyone who didn’t know him.  
  
But Ren did know Taako, very well, and she was giving him That Look that she reserved for special occasions…so usually five or six times a day.  
  
“I’m just saying if you walked over there and introduced yourself instead of whipping up, like, an 18-tier cake or whatever shit you’re cooking up-”  
  
“Ren, you sweet naive little apprentice, does this LOOK like cake batter?” Taako drawled, flicking his wrist so that one of the bowls started spinning faster. “I thought I’d taught you better than that.”  
  
Ren rolled her eyes and turned back to her cutting board. “Well, I’m not helping you with whatever it is.”  
  
“I didn’t need your help, I’m perfectly capable of handling this myself.”  
  
“We’ve got paying customers sitting in the dining room right now who need you more than whatever hot guy you’re interested in-”  
  
“Ren, this is more than just a crush-”  
  
“Taako, you say that every week-”  
  
“This one’s different-”  
  
“You say that every other week,” she said, pointing her knife at him. “It’s the hot florist, isn’t it?” She grabbed two plates and walked them over to the counter, hollering “Order up!” before hurrying back to a simmering pot on the stove.  
  
“How is he such a walking goth disaster and still so attractive?” sighed Taako. “He’s like if Halloween was a person and he sells flowers and it shouldn’t work but it does.”

The building across from Taako’s restaurant, which had been vacant ever since Magnus had moved his dog training school to Neverwinter, had recently been bought by a mysterious florist (“The most beautiful man I’ve ever seen outside a mirror”) who had opened up shop that week. Ren had stopped by the day he opened to introduce herself and pick up a bouquet of sunflowers for the front of house, but Taako had chosen to spy from the safety of the restaurant and in the span of 48 hours had gone from pining to baking him the most extravagant dessert Ren had ever seen.

“You know he’s gluten intolerant, right?”  
  
Everything in the kitchen stopped spinning as Taako looked at Ren, a panic-stricken look on his face. She lasted three seconds before losing her composure and started snickering uncontrollably.  
  
“Oh Istus, I had you good-”  
  
She ducked as Taako hurled an oven mitt at her head.  
  
“His name is Kravitz, by the way. Taako, just walk over and say hello before you start leaving random desserts at his door. He’s really lovely.”  
Before Taako could answer, Hurley burst through the kitchen door. Taako and Ren stopped bickering to look at her quizzically; Hurley rarely came in the kitchen unless guests complained- and guests never complained.  
  
“You’re never going to guess who I just seated,” she said smugly.  
  
“Oh no,” said Taako.  
  
“Oh yes,” said Ren, her eyes lighting up.  
  
“I told him our head chef would be out in just a moment to tell him our brand new specials,” she said, looking pointedly at Taako.  
  
Taako threw his arms up in the air. “Does the entire restaurant know?”  
  
“You’re not exactly subtle about it,” said Ren. Hurley nodded in agreement. “Come on-”  
  
She pushed Taako to the swinging doors Hurley had just walked through. “Go tell our new guest what the specials are.”  
  
                                                                                                                      ***  
Kravitz was sitting at his table, scanning the menu. Sizzle It Up was one of the city’s best restaurants, or so he’d been told, and opening up his shop across the street meant he could duck in for lunch when he had a free hour. They’d been swamped during the first week, but things had finally slowed and Sloane had sworn she could watch over the shop for an hour and didn’t he want to introduce himself to their new neighbors?  
  
He was scanning the desserts when he heard someone approach his table. He put down the menu and-  
  
_Oh_. Well, then.  
  
“Do they not sell shorts at Fantasy Hot Topic?”  
  
Kravitz glanced down at his black jeans and turtleneck. “Uh-”  
  
“You’ve got to be sweltering in that shop of yours, bubbleh,” said the waiter. “It’s absolutely boiling outside. But I guess your fashion choices or lack thereof are none of my business.”  
  
“You’re one to talk,” said Kravitz, irritated. “That chef’s hat has to be a fire hazard.”  
  
He reached up and tilted his hat so that it sat even more crookedly than it had before. “You see a fire hazard, I see a challenge.”  
  
“You’re the chef, I’m assuming?”  
  
“Taako, you know, from TV?” said Taako, curtseying gracefully. “You’re the florist, I presume?”  
  
“I am, but how did you know?” asked Kravitz.. “I haven’t seen you in my shop yet.” He crooked an eyebrow. “I’d have remembered.”  
  
“I have my sources,” said Taako, giving his hair a toss. “And my sous-chef went over and picked up a bouquet this week.” He gestured to the front of house stand, where a vase of flowers sat. “If only you dressed as well as you arranged flowers.”  
  
“I came here to eat lunch, not have my wardrobe critiqued,” shot Kravitz.  
  
“Consider it a two-for-one special,” said Taako, flashing him a dazzling smile. He rattled off the specials effortlessly. “What’ll it be, bubbleh?”  
  
“I’ll take the fish,” said Kravitz. “And can you also get me some of the Elderflower macarons to go?”  
  
“Ohh, so you’re a macaron fan?” asked Taako, waggling his eyebrows.  
  
“Word on the street is that yours are the very best.”  
  
“Everything I do is the best, darling,” said Taako, picking up Kravitz’s menu and tucking it neatly under his arm. “Your food will be out pronto.”  
  
“I look forward to it.”  
  
Kravitz watched him practically waltz back to the kitchen.  
  
“Show-off,” he muttered, but he smiled a little before gazing back out the window.  
  
                                                                                                                     ***  
Taako burst through the kitchen doors and flung himself onto a counter.  
  
Hurley and Ren, who had been chatting when he walked in, stopped immediately and raised their eyebrows at him.  
  
“Well?” said Ren. “Is he everything you dreamed of and more?”  
  
Taako didn’t say anything, instead walking over to the bowls he’d been working on earlier. Muttering under his breath, he started trasmuting the contents so that they became different ingredients entirely, throwing out a couple of the bowls and starting a couple of new ones from scratch.  
  
“Um, so it didn’t go well?” asked Hurley, squinting. Ren shook her head, grinnning.  
  
“No,” she said, glapping her hands gleefully. “He’s _improvising_ , which means it went better than well.”  
  
“There was a slight change of plans,” said Taako, measuring out sugar and levitating a bowl over to the mixer.  
  
“You’re already cooking his favorite foods?” asked Ren. “Oh Taako, you’ve got it bad.”  
  
Hurley clapped her hands and skipped out of the kitchen. “I’m going to go talk to him some more.”  
  
“Don’t you DARE,” hollered Taako, but he was speaking to a pair of swinging doors. Hurley had already bounced back into the dining area. “Why did I hire you both again?”  
  
“Because you needed a couple of competent women to keep you in line,” said Ren patiently. “So what are we cooking our guest of honor?”  
  
“You’re not TOUCHING his food,” said Taako, firing up a burner. “I’m cooking it.”  
  
Ren nodded, turning back to her pot. “That’s fine, but I’m checking it for love potions before it goes out.”  
  
“Like I’d need to resort to a love potion to make him fall for me,” muttered Taako. “I’m Taako, you know, from TV, remember?”  
  
“I know, I know.”  
                                                                                                                    ***  
Kravitz was going to lock up for the day when he noticed a levitating box bumping insistently at his front window.  
  
Frowning, he went to investigate. The shop was empty, the last bits of light filtering in the wide windows that lined the storefront. He’d already sent Sloane home, and she hadn’t said anything about a package when she left. He opened the front door to get a better look at it and then promptly ducked as it zoomed inside the shop, landing neatly on the counter at the front of the store.  
  
Kravitz looked at it warily, but it sat innocently, a plain white box with a gaudy purple bow wrapped around it. The letter _T_ was emblazoned on the front in a bright pink script font, matching the storefront across the way.  
  
“What in the-” said Kravitz, glancing across the road towards Taako’s restaurant. He thought he saw somebody duck down when they caught him looking, but he couldn’t be sure.  
  
He unwrapped the box and opened it up. Before he even saw the contents, a tantalizing aroma filled the store. He closed his eyes and inhaled. Some kind of dessert?  
  
He peered inside.  
  
The box was filled with a dozen macarons, each one a different color but all of them vibrant and beautiful. There was a definite color scheme going on - dark, rich purples, blood red and a couple of black and gray cookies sprinkled in, offset by a couple soft lavender and pink cookies to brighten up the box.  
  
Their fillings were all different colors, too, and they looked almost…textured?  
  
He picked one up, squinting at it.  
  
Upon closer inspection, Kravitz saw that Taako had piped a different design around each edge. The lavender cookie he’d picked up had yellow frosting, miniature sunflowers rimming the edges, each perfect and identical to the one next to it. He set it carefully down on the counter, careful not to smudge the icing, and picked up another one that with deep red roses piped into the side.  
  
They were all flowers- lilies, roses, daisies, hibiscus, succulents, each one perfect and delicate and painstakingly realistic.  
  
He felt his face heat up as he picked up every cookie, examining each one with the utmost care, taking in the craftsmanship of the frosting work. He laughed out loud when he saw what the final macaron’s design was- the lone black cookie in the box was filled with white icing, tiny, perfect skulls smiling back at Kravitz. He laid it next to the others and pulled a note from the bottom of the box.  
  
_You may be the only living (???) being alive who can make goth look chic, but you’re still a walking fashion disaster. Consider this your formal invitation to have a fashion expert (moi, natch) take you somewhere besides Fantasy Hot Topic. - T_  
  
Kravitz put the note down and looked across the street. This time, he definitely caught Ren’s face peering over the hostess’ stand. She caught Kravitz’s eye and immediately ducked down, but sheepishly rose back up and shrugged at him when she realized she’d been caught.  
  
Kravitz gave her an unreadable expression before winking at her.  
  
Ren jumped up, a huge grin on her face, and ran back to the kitchen. Kravitz smiled, closed the box of macarons, and set them carefully on the main counter. He turned and surveyed his shop carefully.  
  
If he hurried, he might be able to get a reply ready by the next day.  
  
                                                                                                                         ***  
Taako bolted up with a start, looked at his clock, and swore loudly, jumping out of bed and then swearing again when he overshot his slippers and his bare feet landed on the cold floor.  
  
He threw on a pair of rumpled clothes he’d worn the day before (a snap of his fingers got rid of the wrinkles and he’d cast some cosmetic spells to change the colors later so he didn’t look like an outfit-repeater, but he didn’t have time to do anything else)  
  
Thank the gods he lived upstairs from his restaurant, he thought as he ran down the stairs. His foot missed a step and he tumbled down the last six steps.  
  
Actually, fuck that noise.  
  
His stone of Far Speech buzzed with a message and he glanced at it distractedly.  
  
_Ren: Overslept. Be there ASAP. I’ll make it up to you._  
  
Fantastic. HIs sous chef was late, he was missing a shipment of produce he was supposed to come in from Goldcliff yesterday, he looked like an utter disaster and all in all, this wasn't how Taako wanted to start his Wednesday.  
  
He slammed the pantry door shut and threw a couple of pans in the sink just because he could, dammit. Sparks flickered from his fingertips as he muttered under his breath. It wasn't until he smelled smoke that he realized he'd singed the corner of his apron - his favorite fucking apron and no it did not matter that he could fix it with magic, it was the principle of the thing-  
  
At that moment, someone knocked on the front door and wasn't this just fan-fucking-tastic, he thought, throwing his smoldering apron in the sink as melodramatically as he possibly could and grabbing another one before storming to the door.  
  
"This shipment was supposed to be here YESTERDAY and if you think for a Pan-damn second I'm going to pay ANYTHING for it, you've got another thing coming, fucked up the ENTIRE fall menu bec-"  
  
Taako flung the door open and stopped abruptly. Where he had expected to see a cowering delivery elf stood a veritable explosion of flowers. Sunflowers, forget-me-nots, lilies, an ungodly amount of roses of all colors, spilled into the doorway. There were vases stacked on the fence and littered around the main porch, massive bouquets stuffed in the porch railing, daisy chains hanging from the ceiling and stretching...did they go around the whole restaurant?  
  
Taako waded carefully through flower petals littering the ground and picked up a note resting on the doormat.  
  
_It’s a date._  
  
“Not bad for a dozen macarons,” he said, picking up a sunflower and tucking it in his hat.  
  
Ren came sprinting around the corner, gasping for breath, before skidding to a halt in front of the restaraunt and letting out a shriek that they could probably hear at the BOB headquarters.  
  
“He’s fucking perfect,” she said.  
  
“I might need your help to top this one,” said Taako.  
  
“See, now might be a good time to bust out the 18-tier cake,” said Ren, rolling up her sleeves and marching past him into the restaurant. “I think we can open late today, don’t you?”  
  
“Read my mind, kimosabe,” said Taako. He followed her in the door, snapping his fingers as he did. The flowers levitated and trailed inside after him.

 


End file.
